Carolina Hurricanes chase 9 straight wins against Canadiens — Hurricane Caroline
The Carolina Hurricanes open hurricane caroline against the Montreal Canadiens in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference Final on Thursday at Lenovo Center. Carolina can become the second team in NHL history to start the Stanley Cup Playoffs with 9 straight wins.
Rod Brind'Amour has the Hurricanes in position for a run no NHL team has matched since the 1985 Edmonton Oilers opened with 9 straight wins. Montreal arrives after two postseason rounds that went the distance, including a Game 7 win over the Buffalo Sabres on Monday and a seven-game first-round series against the Tampa Bay Lightning.
Lenovo Center on Thursday
Carolina has reached the conference final in successive seasons for the first time in Hurricanes and Hartford Whalers history. The franchise has been eliminated in the Eastern Final 3 times since 2018-19, including last season against the Florida Panthers, who went on to win the Stanley Cup. Thursday gives Carolina another chance to turn that pattern into a different result without changing the facts of the matchup: the Hurricanes have swept their first two series, while Montreal has survived 2 straight Game 7s.
Rod Brind'Amour and Martin St. Louis
Brind'Amour said he is not carrying the recent playoff losses into Game 1. “I don’t know. I’m kind of over all that, to be honest,” he said, and added in the dressing room that “There’s enough to worry about without worrying about the past. I think we’ve taken a lot of things from it but that didn’t just come now. We’ve been using that all year, ever since last playoffs. I know it’s not an issue with us. It’s not a thought. But you learn from the past. You have to.”
Martin St. Louis framed Montreal’s path the same way, but from the opposite bench. “I think at this time of the season you have to be able to defend hard,” he said after Montreal advanced, and later added that the Canadiens have learned “we’re going to lose momentum, but we can’t get hurt so much. We can’t break. We can bend, but we can’t break and I think we’ve done a good job of that.”
Montreal's breakout test
Noah Dobson said the Canadiens will need cleaner exits against Carolina’s pressure. “It’s definitely important,” he said of the forecheck, adding, “We’re going to need to be good on breakouts, support each other, use our legs to be able to make plays and try to break their pressure.” Dobson said that if Montreal does that, the Canadiens will spend more time with the puck in the offensive zone.
That makes Game 1 more than a simple opener. It is the first series in NHL history to pair a team coming off back-to-back sweeps in a best-of-7 series with a team that won each of its previous two series in Game 7. The winner of Thursday’s first game will set the tone for a series built on very different routes to the same stage, and Carolina is the one trying to turn a rare start into something no team has done since 1985.
